


A Suitable Interest

by asuralucier



Category: John Wick (Movies)
Genre: Age Difference, Banter, Breathplay, Consensual Power Imbalance, M/M, Mentor/Protégé, Pre-Canon, Semi-Public Sex, Suits, Tape Measure, Voyeurism, Yuleporn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-25
Updated: 2019-12-25
Packaged: 2021-02-18 07:22:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21840457
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asuralucier/pseuds/asuralucier
Summary: Marcus Watches John get dressed.
Relationships: Marcus/John Wick
Comments: 8
Kudos: 71
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	A Suitable Interest

**Author's Note:**

  * For [karanguni](https://archiveofourown.org/users/karanguni/gifts).



> Thanks to ictus for the beta!

Out of the corner of his eye, Marcus watched as the Tailor gave John monosyllabic instructions on how and where to move. All the while, a worn tape measure, so worn that Marcus could spy no ink on it whatsoever, made its way around John’s lithe frame with little trouble as if the Tailor still knew exactly what he was doing. 

(He’d better; if he didn’t, then the Tailor had no business keeping Marcus’s fairly steady patronage. A working man needed to keep sharp.) 

An inch there, here, bend your knee, raise your elbow. 

Higher than that, Mr. Wick, please.

John’s face tightened with effort as he worked to obey, but finally, he dropped his shoulder and frowned. “I can’t.” He balled his hands into fists and squeezed, as if some of his discomfort would come out and leave his body. 

The Tailor, an unsmiling man in his fifties who’d certainly been around the block a few times, fixed Marcus with one of those looks. “What did you do to him?” 

Marcus said, “Nothing.” Yet. At least, not today. But curation was what made the world go around. That was a sacred lesson instilled in Marcus first by a firm hand, a hand so firm that he no longer remembered the face that came with it, and then honed and sharpened by endless hours stood behind a scope. If Marcus availed himself to thinking what the Tailor got up to in his off hours, he’d likely never set foot in this shop again. 

Marcus had no doubt that the Tailor would think the same about him. He put the thought out of mind and waved John over. “Come here.” 

John’s gait was heavy and weighted. Just watching the kid move made Marcus hurt, and not especially in the nice way, either. “What?” 

“You should have told me it hurt that bad,” Marcus said. Next to where he was sitting, the Tailor had provided one glass and an already opened bottle of champagne. He topped up the glass and handed it over. John took it. 

“I can handle it,” John said, pressing his lips unhappily against the rim of the glass. 

“Bullshit,” Marcus said, staring him down. From his pocket, he extracted an unmarked bottle of pills. “Here. Open your mouth. It’ll dissolve by itself, but it’s probably better if you swallow. Dunno how it tastes.” 

The Tailor was probably having a field day. John said, eyes going wide, “Sure I’ve swallowed worse.” 

Marcus was hardly in the mood. “Shut the fuck up and do as I tell you.” 

John did, and Marcus put one oblong-shaped tablet on the tip of his tongue. It was not his habit to carry around top-grade black market stuff, courtesy of the Continental doc, but John Wick was ever the epitome of bad habit. John swallowed the pill down with a long gulp of champagne without any more fuss. 

The Tailor was still looking at them with thinly-veiled suspicion. Marcus was paying the guy too much to put up with this shit. So he said, “Problem?” 

“No problem.” The Tailor retreated with a polite incline of his head, and that was that. “...Let me know when you’re ready to get back to it, Mr. Wick.” 

John slumped down next to Marcus in a vacant chair, and Marcus watched as the kid slowly settled back into himself. John shifted his weight, first to his left side, and then to his right, testing both. Didn't seem to come to a decision one way or the other. “Okay. So maybe I overdid it. I. Sorry.”

Marcus exhaled a sigh of his own. “It’s not about that, John.” 

“It’s not?” 

Finally, Marcus let himself look. Curation was a valuable lesson that he himself was still learning when it came to John Wick. It wasn’t as if he was some green idiot bumbling around with some kid in tow. But when Marcus looked at John, half the time it still felt like he was falling and falling and falling into a bottomless hole. 

John was indeed staring back at him, rapt with attention. His eyes were bright with pain, but also with an eagerness to please that gave it another sort of light, the sort that didn’t come from pain. There was something about that stark, naked desire in his young, know-nothing gaze that did Marcus in every time. 

He sighed, “I need to be able to trust you. That you can move when I need you to. There’s no shame in survival, but there’s a world of fucking hurt coming your way if you, what’s the word, _overdo_ it. -- Let’s not even get started on _it_. And not from me.” Marcus stared back. “Understand?” 

Marcus’s words seemed to cow John into submission and his eyes slid down to his hands. “You can trust me, Marcus.” 

If push came to shove, Marcus had to admit the kid wasn’t dumb and probably wasn’t lying. They’d been on jobs before together, and there’d been mishaps, as these things went, and John hadn’t let him down yet. Along that vein, Marcus was also aware that John was able to move so quick and made all the right decisions in the blink of an eye -- less than -- because it wasn’t blood flowing through his body, it was pure adrenaline. But adrenaline could just as easily freeze you up and that was one lesson John hadn’t yet had the bad luck to learn. Schadenfreude. So far, John was a lucky sonofabitch and Marcus got enough out of the whole affair not to resent the kid for it, much. 

“All right,” Marcus said finally; out of the corner of his eye, he could see that the Tailor was getting antsy again. “Let’s just finish up here, we got places to be.” 

John’s movements were still stiff, but at least he could move, which was better than before. Marcus sipped more champagne and admired the way the sleek, dark fabric hugged the hard, stubborn lines of John’s body. The Tailor stepped in once more and wrapped his worn tape measure around John’s throat, just above the start of his pristine off-white collar. 

“Comfortable, Mr. Wick?” 

John, to Marcus’s very trained eye, looked anything but. “I guess.” 

The Tailor didn’t quite seem to believe John either, but before he could say anything else, there was a loud sound of the shop’s landline going. The Tailor, after heaving a more than irritated sigh, let go of the tape measure and stepped out of John’s immediate vicinity. He mumbled a, “pardon me,” and strode off with the phone in hand. He didn’t need to say anything for his soured expression to speak volumes for him. The Tailor’s office was tucked away by some rickety stairs that miraculously hadn’t yet been collapsed by determined mites.

Marcus waited for the door to close before he stood up. 

John was still looking towards the stairs. “What was that?” 

“I don’t ask,” Marcus said, shrugging. “It’s only polite. He doesn’t ask what I get up to.” 

John smirked, “I’m sure he could guess. What with me swallowing worse.” 

“Where do you get off speaking to me like that?” Marcus leaned in, feeling the telltale hitch of John’s next intake of breath. He was halfway sure that John was playing it up for reasons but the underlying heat was stubborn and attractive all the same. 

“I can think of five different ways.” 

The tape measure still hung around John’s neck invitingly, almost like a noose. He held stiff, on guard, waiting. Marcus wound the measure thoughtfully between his fingers and then let go. “If it’s just five, I’m not doing my job.” 

John let out a breath and looked down at himself. “Why do I need another suit?” 

“Because,” Marcus dragged out the word. “You’re not a yokel. And I refuse to have you look like one. You’ll break this one in, like all the other ones. We’ve talked about this, yeah?” He had to admit, it was a bit of an annoyance, that John wasn’t as quite up on professional attire as Marcus would have liked, but as far as weaknesses went, it was more than manageable. 

John’s gaze swept up to meet his. “Or maybe you just don’t want me to make you look bad.” 

“Yeah, okay.” Marcus shrugged. “That too, bite me.” 

John said, “Not if you like it.” 

“That’s real cute.” 

They were standing not two inches away from each other, but when John leaned down and Marcus leaned forward to press his mouth to John's, it still felt like he was drowning for the first time. They’d done versions of this song and dance, too many to count, and yet it still managed to be fresh and never stale. Sure, the Tailor’s presence, oppressing and obstinate behind the door of his office, made things especially interesting this time around. 

(That too, was saying something since Marcus was the kind of guy who usually depended on guns to make things interesting. Maybe he was, in a sense, halfway responsible for John liking the adrenaline rush just on this side of too much.) 

But anyway. 

There was a familiar glint in John’s eye as he broke the kiss, dark and suddenly flooded with knowledge, the recognition of a new challenge. The knowledge that he could bring Marcus to his knees and more, but only with his goddamn permission. 

Said goddamn permission snaked down to Marcus’s groin and stayed there, like a slow, warming thing. 

Well, fuck it. 

John kissed him again, fingers hungry and sticky with want, dragging Marcus in first by his jaw and then moving to cup him at the back of his skull, to bring him closer. That was something else about John, his tongue was sharp (and tasted now, of the slight sweetness of the champagne he’d drunk earlier), and his touch was never unsure whenever there was something to be done. 

Yet in spite of all that, there was still something soft about John, yet uncracked, and green. Marcus had to remind himself as his fingers tangled up the tape measure, not to like it too much. Tugging the measure so that he could get to one end of it, it was easy for Marcus to loop the soft plastic around John’s neck and fashion a bowline knot coming to rest just a hair below John’s Adam’s apple. 

He’d plenty of practice. It was no longer something that Marcus had to think about. 

That got John’s attention right quick and he pointed his chin down at the knot before glancing warily towards the door of the Tailor’s office. Still shut, but whatever was going on in there was probably heating up too. Raised voices, but not quite loud enough to pick out words or assume any sense of context, but maybe it was safe to assume he was going to be occupied for a while. 

“Should we really?” 

Yet the question belied the movements of John’s hands, which were quick and nimble and already undoing the buckle of Marcus’s belt. 

“Can’t let you have all the bad ideas now, can I?” Marcus grinned, showing teeth. He pulled at the end of the tape measure, watching the knot tighten prettily against John’s bare skin. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to get his hands to stutter and for John to draw a sharp intake of breath. 

John’s hands weren’t the only part of him that was twitchy. One of Marcus’s other favorite things about him. He had military focus, even when it came to his dick. An obvious bulge was straining against his new, as yet unspoiled trousers. 

Speaking of dick. Marcus was freshly aware that John had undone his buckle and was set to pull down his fly. In any other circumstance, he would have congratulated John on his efficiency, but now he was more worried about maintaining control. He said, “Who said you could touch?” 

Marcus’s own forming erection probably did. But that was neither here nor there. They’d broken in his suit plenty, the one that he was wearing now. So it wasn’t important now. All in the periphery and not in the scope, so to speak. 

“You’re not exactly complaining,” John pointed out, still breathing, but thinly. But he was good at doing what he was told and clenched his hands. 

“No,” Marcus agreed, shoving John's wandering hands out of the way and readjusting himself. “But I have better control than you. That’s how it is.” After, he demonstrated with a slight tug of the knot, and watched it tighten, the whiteness of the material a standout against John’s flushed skin. 

He put his mouth against John’s collarbone, relishing in the nearby lively tremor of his veins. The great thing about gunslinging for a living was that a guy got very very good at doing things with only one hand. It didn’t take Marcus long to work his hand into John’s pants and run just a thumb down the length of him while gripping him lightly. He pressed his thumb against the head of John’s cock, and like he’d pulled some sort of unseen trigger, John bowed forward and into Marcus’s hand, moaning his name. 

“Quietly,” Marcus said against his skin. It was just as well, that he didn’t think he could trust himself to speak any louder, either. He pulled the tape measure just to underline the point. “Or I’ll stop.” 

John’s left hand was suddenly an iron claw near Marcus’s hip, probably gripping hard enough to leave a mark through his clothes. He was suddenly just as tempted. “I’ll -- I’ll be quiet.” 

“Good.” Marcus tightened his hold on John and used the not exactly subtle rocking of John’s hips to establish a rhythm.

“This is still a terrible idea,” John said, eyes squeezed shut.

“Little late for that.” Marcus pulled back a little to look at him. “Trust me?” 

John stared back, heady and earnest and made Marcus think that this _was_ all a terrible idea, but for another reason entirely. “Always. But what if I --” 

Marcus had one eye still trained on the Tailor’s office door. “If you’re really good, John, I’ll swallow. Keep you all nice and neat.” 

“ _Fuck_.” 

John’s erection pulsed in Marcus’s grip at his promise. Not wanting to chance it, Marcus sank down and freed him from the confines of his trousers. He wasn’t even halfway through feeding the whole of John into his mouth when he heard a guttural noise above him and then the not unfamiliar taste of John’s come. Marcus gave the tape measure a final yank and John’s dick responded with one last Pavlovian twitch at the back of his throat. 

The moment Marcus tucked John back into his pants, and not a moment too soon, the Tailor emerged from his office. The man had the receiver still in hand, looking a bit like he was suffering from a mighty bout of whiplash. Most importantly, not exactly paying attention. 

John said, motioning, “Marcus. You’ve got.” 

Well, shit. Marcus wiped a hand across his mouth and swallowed again. He settled back in his chair and poured himself more champagne. 

“Anything the matter, Mr. Wick?” The Tailor said, as John just about untangled the tape measure around his throat. He was still a bit flushed in the face, but maybe he could get away with complaining that it was hot. (It was.) If the Tailor didn’t buy that, then Marcus certainly trusted John to improvise. 

After all, he’d learned from the best. 

“No,” John shook his head and rolled back his shoulders; under Marcus’s watchful gaze, he seemed to be settling more into his new suit. “Everything’s fine.”


End file.
